A university librarian who proposed the sale of Shakespeare’s folios has
resigned weeks after his undeclared romantic link with an employee at the
auction house set to sell them was revealed.

Senate House Library at the University of London scrapped plans to sell a set of four of Shakespeare’s folios at auction after leading academics attacked the proposal as “an act of stupidity” and warned it could damage the university’s reputation.

Christopher Pressler, director of the university's Senate House Library, announced he is resigning for “personal reasons”, weeks after he admitted breaching financial rules by not disclosing his relationship with an employee at Bonhams, appointed to oversee the sale.

When the sale was originally proposed he said the set of four folios, estimated to be worth £5 million, could make money for the library to buy more modern manuscripts, as they were ‘duplicates’ of others it held.

Mr Pressler said: “Following much thought, I have decided to resign as director for personal reasons and in order to pursue other opportunities. I look forward to seeing the library grow from strength to strength and I wish it, and all the staff in it, the very best”.

He said he would be leaving his position at the library, where he has been for the last three years, in the next few days.

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Mr Pressler’s partner works in a different department at Bonhams to the one appointed to handle the sale. The university confirmed his partner had not been involved in any part of the proposal or in any way that could have been prejudicial.

But the librarian accepted he had failed to follow the university’s rules about potential conflicts of interest after he didn’t inform them about his seven year relationship.

When the proposal was first announced academics questioned why Bonhams was chosen for the sale of the 17th century works, including the First Folio of 1623, over better known auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotherby’s.

The university said Bonhams had been invited to make the first tender on the sale and had been chosen because it provided good value for money, but that two other sales houses were invited to tender.

Days after they announced a consultation, Senate House said it had cancelled the plans because of a vociferous backlash.

Academics had attacked the plans to sell the works, saying the folios were invaluable for research purposes as no two were likely to be the same because of the way they were printed and corrected. They warned any sale would undermine the university’s reputation and could deter people from making future bequests.

Sir Brian Vickers, a visiting professor at University College London, branded the proposal “an act of stupidity of the highest order.”

The folios were bequeathed to the university's Senate House Library by Sir Louis Sterling, an American philanthropist, when he died in 1958, on the condition they were permanently housed in the library.